Brannigan's Baby

‘No,’ Whitney said stiffly. ‘That’s mine.’

‘Then I’ll take the one next door.’ He raised his brows. ‘Any problem with that?’

Yes, she wanted to say. A big problem. The last thing she wanted was to have him sleeping in the next room to hers. ‘That’ll be fine. For now.’

The baby shifted, muttered and snuggled his face against Luke’s shirt. And Luke dropped an absent kiss on top of the child’s head, on the crown of the blue hat.

Something about the picture tugged Whitney’s heart; and as Luke turned on his heel and strode off, she stared after him, wondering why she felt so emotionally affected. Was it because Luke was so hard and invulnerable, while his child was trusting and helpless? Was it the tenderness of his gesture that had touched her heart? She didn’t want to think of Luke as tender; she wanted to keep believing him to be horrid and arrogant...and impossible.

Only then would she feel justified in using every trick she could come up with in order to get rid of him. Where was the mother of his child? Was she alive? Were they married? Divorced? Had they indeed ever been married? Was she still in his life?

One question she didn’t need to ask herself, because she already knew the answer. Luke still hated her...just as he’d hated her thirteen years before, when Cressida Brannigan had brought her to live at Brannigan House.

Looking at it now, from an adult point of view, she didn’t find Luke’s attitude toward her so surprising. After all, she had been the cause of all the quarrels between him and his grandmother, in particular that last ugly quarrel that had led to Cressida’s giving Luke the ultimatum that had resulted in Luke’s leaving the family home.

Whitney had always felt burdened by guilt over that, because Luke had disappeared, never to be heard from again.

Till today.

On learning of his grandmother’s death, he’d appeared shocked. Had he been? Or was he just a very good actor?

It was possible that word of Maxwell’s attempts to contact him had reached him. It was also equally possible that his arrival at Brannigan House, on this particular day, had been sheer coincidence. After all, it was a well-known fact that truth was stranger than fiction. And it didn’t really matter, did it! The bottom line was that he had turned up, like the proverbial bad penny...

Whitney frowned. He’d said he had no money. If indeed he was penniless, then he was entitled to move into this house and make it his home.

But she was not about to take his claim at face value. She had a responsibility to Cressida, to make sure the terms of her will were carried out to the letter.

She’d get Edmund Maxwell onto it immediately, have him make some investigations...and ferret out the truth.

CHAPTER TWO

‘WELL, I am impressed...’

Whitney hadn’t heard Luke come into the kitchen. His voice startled her, and she took a moment to calm herself before turning around.

‘Impressed? By what?’

He glanced at the stacks of clean dishes, and the dozens of crystal glasses, which Whitney had carefully handwashed and then polished with a linen tea towel till they sparkled. ‘By your efforts to impress.’

She put her shoulder to him, and hefted up a pile of plates. ‘Excuse me. I need to get into that cupboard.’

He stepped aside, and opened the cupboard door. ‘You don’t have to prove anything to me,’ he said softly. ‘I know exactly where you’re coming from. Relax, honey...go pour yourself another drink and let the housekeeper finish up here.’

Keeping a tight rein on her anger, Whitney crossed to collect a second pile of plates. Pretending he didn’t exist, she busied herself putting the rest of the dishes away. Then she started on the glasses, arranging as many as she could do on a large wooden tray, before carrying them out into the hall and across to the living room.

Resentfully she became aware that Luke was right behind her; a burr couldn’t have stuck much closer.

He made no attempt to help as she set the glasses in the buffet.

‘So.’ His tone was dripping with sarcasm. ‘Here we are, darlin’. Home alone.’

‘I’m not in the mood for jokes—’

‘Oh, it’s no joke. Whoever would have thought, when you arrived here as a saucer-eyed orphan, that one day we’d be setting up house together.’

‘We shall not be setting up house together. It seems, at present, that I have no option but to give you a room, but beyond that, you are entirely on your own. You can do your own cooking, and cleaning—’

‘The servants’ll look after me. That’s what they’re paid for.’

She turned on him sharply. ‘Cook and Myrna will not be looking after you! They’ve already gone—and they won’t be coming back. They were over retirement age and only stayed on as long as they did because they loved your grandmother.’

She turned on her heel and with the tray swinging from one hand, walked with purposeful steps back to the kitchen. There she began loading the remaining glasses onto the tray.

Once these were put away, she decided, she was going to soak in a hot bath and then have an early night. Her exhaustion had now intensified to the point where she knew that if she once sat down, she’d never get up again!

‘I tried to get into the attic,’ Luke’s voice came from behind, making her grit her teeth, ‘but it’s locked. Do you have the key?’

She didn’t look at him; continued to load the glasses. ‘What do you want it for?’

‘I remember my grandmother as being something of a pack rat, and there’s a faint hope that my own nursery furniture might be still up there—I know it used to be, when I was a boy. Do you happen to—’

‘It’s still there...along with an old stroller. But it’ll all be covered in dust. I’ve had no time to do any cleaning in the attic this past year, and Myrna wasn’t up to climbing those steep, narrow stairs.’

‘So...where’s the key?’

‘On the shelf above the door.’ Finally she turned. ‘You’re not going up there tonight? Even if you did bring the cot down, you couldn’t put your baby in it yet—the mattress will need to be aired, the woodwork washed down.’

He rubbed a hand against his nape, and she noticed, for the first time, that his eyes were strained, his expression weary. If he hadn’t been so arrogant and hostile, she might have felt a twinge of concern...or even sympathy.

‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘In the morning, then.’

‘Where will you put the baby tonight?’

‘He can sleep with me.’

Lucky baby! she thought...and immediately felt a wave of shock; where had that thought come from! She turned abruptly and reached out for the tray, but in her haste she knocked over a crystal sherry glass. It fell to the floor, shattering on the terra-cotta tiles.

With a murmur of dismay, she crouched down, but as she scrabbled to pick up the pieces, she felt a prick of pain. She bit her lip as she saw blood beading on her finger...

A strong hand pulled her to her feet.

‘Here.’ Luke’s voice was gruff. ‘Let me see.’

He held her hand in his, squeezing the finger gently.

‘No glass in there,’ he murmured. ‘At least, I don’t think so...’

She struggled against a feeling of grogginess as he walked her over to the sink. He turned on the cold tap, and held her finger under it.